When I Grew Up
by For All That Is
Summary: It sucks that people don't get what they deserve. Evil people walk around unpunished. Good people die in the streets unrewarded. We don't get what we deserve some barely get what they need. That's life." I said that to a kid. 8 yrs later he quoted me.


DISCLAIMER: Yeah I do not own. I do not have that great of an imagination

Chapter ONE: There's no Alpha

It read " HERE LIES SAMUEL AND EMILY ULEY MAY GOD KEEP THEM" in all caps and underneath that were two sets of dates. Two different birth years, the same year of death. One died of cancer the other..... I don't want to know how he did it. It was bloody, that much was guaranteed by Charlie. He said that we didn't want to see it and I believed him.

Everyone around me, looking at the tombstone, or the sky, or at each other, was quiet. The only sound in the entire graveyard was the forced back sobs of the little boy next to me as he clung to my hand for dear life. Poor Sammy, yesterday, the date of those deaths, would have been his seventh birthday. What a great gift. Congratulations, kid, your ma lost the fight and your dad offed himself. Happy Birthday!

I knelt down and gave Sam Jr. a hug as the people began to clear out. The funeral was over, it had been for a long time now, and the few people left standing there ( i.e:the pack), were leaving. Quill and Claire, Jared and Kim, Paul and Rachel, Brady and Collin they all eventually left me and Sammy there. We were without an alpha. None of Sammy's relatives could take him, and there was no way he was going to foster care. I may have to get Jake from where ever he was, and yeah that was a lot of trouble, but there was no way I was letting Sammy go through the change in foster care. Nah ah not happening. The only two possible candidates to take care of Sammy were me and Jared. The court ruled that Jared and Kin would share custody with me and that when he was old enough Sammy coul chose where he wanted to live. The house was to be left to me, but when Sammy moved out I'd give it to him. I planned on visiting him all the time. I wasn't going to stop. You know why? Because the kid loved me. He actually did! He looked up to me! Embry the screw up had a kid following him around with a bad case of hero worship. It was great really, if you ignored the fact that after awhile things become mutual. Now the kid was like a little brother to me. Which made the Death of the older Sam adn his mom make me just as sad and angry. Nice job Sam, there are hundreds of people counting on you one of which is yuour kid, but no what does he matter? Your wife is dead it's time to go die.

Now, Sammy was an orphan. Instead of having two stable parental figures he had a group of about eight. None of which screamed "DAD" or "MOM" The kid viewed them all like Aunts and Uncles, friends or foes depending on how bossy the wanted to be at the moment. He asked me to take care of him, begged me to take care of him, but I had to refuse him. I would have in a heartbeat, but the law didn't shine to brightly on a single guy who looked like a giant twenty year old taking care of a kid. The situation screamed "pedophilia" to the more cynical people and "child endangerment" to the optimists. It just wouldn't work, and I knew the kid was going to ask me if he could stay with me agaim he probably wouldn't let it go, ever. I dreaded the thought of having to tell him no again and again.

"Embry, What's gonna happen to me now? What's gonna happen to Mom and Dad?" Sammy eventually asked, bringing me out of my internal monologue to the imaginary audience in my head. I didn't know how to answer so I looked into the kids tear stained face and then at the grave, hoping that maybe it would help me think of an easier way to say it. It didn't, but I answered anyway.

"Your parents' will left you to your Aunt Nellie, but not only is she now in her sixties, she's also living in Manhattan. The next person in line to Accept you was your grandmother, and if you think Aunt Nellie is old, don't get started on Grams. After going through the list of relatives it was decided that you were going to live with family friends." I said slowly.

"Does that mean I get to stay with you?!" Sammy asked excitedly. I winced when I saw his eyes fill with hope again, it always came back to this, it went in a circle.

"No kiddo, you're going to stay with Kim and Jared."

"What why?" He asked, "You said "Family Friends" you were at our house constantly, Dad and Ma said you was a "family friend!" You're prefect!" Sammy argued with a considerable amount of reason for a seven year old, and it was obvious he was trying his hardest to think of logical reasons for him to stay with me. The incorrect verbs aside it was astounding how much he sounded like an adult.

"Sammy, it's not that simple. There are lawyers and policemen involved. I'm a single unmarried guy living in a tiny house working at a construction company. They think I wouldn't have the proper income or means to raise you, and let's face it they're right." I said looking into Sammy's eyes beseechingly. I felt so guilty about it, that I was even planning on getting a new job, and taking some college courses. Maybe if I had a little more to say about myself it would lessen the guilt I felt for not being there for Sammy.

"But hey isn't it cool to know that you have a long list of people lining up to take care of you?" I asked with a smile trying to get him to cheer up.

"Yeah...but that's only after four people threw me away." he said.

"Hey what the heck!? What d'ya mean by that?" I exclaimed. He knew a while ago that his ma was going to die, but there was no way he could've expected the situation with his dad, no matter how smart he was. No one bothered to tell him about it. Everyone knew Sam would refuse to outlive Emily more than six hours, but no one could get up the nerve to warn the kid. We were probably never gonna live that down.

"Dad, you, Aunt Nellie, Grandma, that makes four people." he said in his angry voice. His angry voice freaks me out, it reminds me of my ma, but the wise voice is worse. The wise voice is what he uses when he says something that make adults' jaws go slack and their eyes go round. He sometimes says things that are so intuitive, intelligent, deep whatever you wanna say, that it makes you think he's an old man in a kid's body. The wise voice was awesome when he wasn't using it on you, but when it is you kinda wanna go jump off a cliff, because you think you're never gonna be as smart as him. But right then I kinda wanted the wise voice to be used on me. Anything would have been better that the lost tone underlying his angry words. The accomanying bitter smile, too.

"One, your dad did NOT throw you away, ya hear?" I said and my voice sounded so rough that I didn't realize how angry I was until after I heard myself speak.

"Two, Nellie and Grams didn't either they were just inconvenienced by their current predicaments in life," I added using words I swore I'd never use again. Everyone else may have grown up, but I still acted like a teenager, and that meant words like "predicament" were banned. Good ol' Embry would always be the same...maybe.

"At the time they signed the will they were young and still lived on this side of the continent. I don't think you want to go live in New York with all the city folk now do you?"

A shake of the head.

"And you don't want them keeling over within a week of you living with them right?"

Another negative movement of the head.

"And I'm not gonna deem the the comment about me with a response. I'd leap at the chance to take care of ya, kiddo, but I can't. It's not, according to the lawyers "Socially Acceptable" for me to take care of ya." I finished, rolling my eyes at the part about the lawyers.

Sammy and I were quiet for a while and just seeped in the sun from the sky and the sorrow from the graveyard. Kinda odd how for once it doesn't rain in the Olympic peninsula and it's the day of the saddest funeral in my life (and I've been to many). I could tell what Sammy was thinking, and he was obviously embarrassed about what he would ask next. I had already forgotten what his original question was.

"And my parents? What exactly are they doing, what's gonna happen? They're dead. What does that exactly mean?" Sammy eventually said, and I suddenly remembered the second half of his original question.

I sighed, didn't he already know? Didn't Sam ever tell him what would happen to his Ma after she died? Was Sam that much of an ass in the last two years? I was ashamed I hadn't noticed it, Sam Jr. being clueless was rare, which normally made it obvious. I didn't want to answer the question. How was I going to explain death?

I didn't want to answer but I did anyways.

"Your parents," I sighed thinking shit shit shit over and over again "they're gonna rest now, together in heaven. Don't you think they deserve their rest? You know what heaven is right?"

"Yes, but I don't believe in fluffy white clouds! I've never seen them in person! They're gone aren't they?! They deserve their rest sure, but I deserve for them to wake up!" He yelled trying to get out that brand new pain he felt, that he'd never felt before.

"Don't I?" he asked a lonely question a few minutes later. My heart cracked along with the cracking of his voice as he choked on his sobs. There was nothing for me to do, I wasn't God, and if I was I'd probably do the same as Sam when I saw the look in Sammy's eyes.

"Yeah, they're dead Sammy. They're never going to wake up, as for why I can't tell you that. I can say that it sucks that people don't get what they deserve. Evil people walk around unpunished. Good people die in the streets unrewarded. We don't get what we deserve, kid, some barely get what they need. That's life. Doesn't it suck?" I asked.

Again little Sammy nodded and buried his head in my chest. It was then that I realized how young I still was. Sure I could spout random wisdom, but I was still sixteen in most senses of the words. I was a giant and looked like I was twenty-five, but I was just as big and looked just as old when I was sixteen. I was going to screw up the poor kid holding on to me more than Sam did. I turned thirty nine later that day, I still had the body of a college student, still had the energy of a horse on crack, still acted like a teenager, and had a kid holding on to me like I was salvation. What would my parents say?

**AUTHOR"S NOTE: Kay this is just something I'm having fun with it takes place a LONG time after Breaking Dawn, and for how mature Embry pretends to be when Sam Jr. is young he should win an Oscar. That isn't true anymore when Sam gets older though so if you love the fun loving wolf boys I'll have them for you hopefully by the third or fourth chapter. Eventually Embry imprints on one of Sam's friends and there's the issue with the age gap and etc. for now this is a work in progress, I'm determined to finish this story for once so anyone that reads it bear with me.**

**AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review give me an emoticon if you must but review.**

**s'il vous plait et merci**


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